Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 22 encap­su­lates a tumul­tuous day in the life of the pro­tag­o­nist, start­ing with her wak­ing up feel­ing emp­ty after a rest­less night. The chap­ter details her morn­ing rou­tine, which is inter­rupt­ed by mem­o­ries of an encounter with Tam­lin that left her with a phys­i­cal bruise and emo­tion­al tur­moil. Despite her resolve to con­front the after­math head-on, she refus­es to hide her bruise, sig­nal­ing a shift in her demeanor from avoid­ance to con­fronta­tion.

At lunch, where she joins Tam­lin and Lucien, her assertive behav­ior and the vis­i­ble mark of their encounter prompt ques­tions and exchanges that are charged with ten­sion, humor, and under­ly­ing cur­rents of anger and dis­ap­point­ment. The nar­ra­tive weaves these com­plex emo­tions into the social dance of the meal, where hier­ar­chies and per­son­al dynam­ics are pal­pa­ble.

The chap­ter also delves deep into the pro­tag­o­nist’s emo­tion­al land­scape, high­light­ing her strug­gle with her feel­ings for Tam­lin, her sense of self amidst the faerie world, and her cling­ing to her iden­ti­ty through acts of defi­ance and cre­ativ­i­ty. Her deci­sion to not con­ceal the bruise serves as a metaphor for her refusal to hide the impact of her expe­ri­ences in the faerie realm.

As the day pro­gress­es, the pro­tag­o­nist’s actions, from con­fronting Tam­lin and Lucien to express­ing her­self through paint­ing, reflect her grow­ing deter­mi­na­tion to assert her place and voice with­in this oth­er­world­ly domain. Her inter­ac­tions with the faerie men, cou­pled with her soli­tary cre­ative expres­sion, show­case her jour­ney of inter­nal strength and resilience.

The chap­ter con­cludes on a note of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and reflec­tive intro­spec­tion. The pro­tag­o­nist and Tam­lin nav­i­gate their com­plex rela­tion­ship with a mix­ture of apol­o­gy, affec­tion, and mutu­al recog­ni­tion of their flawed human­i­ty. The pro­tag­o­nist’s evening inter­ac­tions, prepa­ra­tions, and the even­tu­al encounter with Tam­lin at din­ner encap­su­late a ten­ta­tive step towards under­stand­ing and accep­tance of her evolv­ing role and emo­tion­al state with­in the faerie court.

This day, marked by con­fronta­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty, and con­nec­tion, sheds light on the pro­tag­o­nist’s mul­ti­fac­eted char­ac­ter, her strug­gle for auton­o­my, and her nego­ti­a­tion of per­son­al bound­aries and rela­tion­ships in a world that is both cap­ti­vat­ing and chal­leng­ing.

In this chap­ter, the nar­ra­tive opens with a grim depic­tion of jail con­di­tions in 1923, as described by Joseph F. Fish­man, set­ting a back­drop for the unfold­ing events. The sto­ry main­ly revolves around Margery and her new­born daugh­ter, Vir­ginia, depict­ing their life with­in the con­straints of a Ken­tucky jail­house. Margery, serv­ing time while await­ing tri­al, expe­ri­ences a pro­found trans­for­ma­tion through moth­er­hood, find­ing solace and a sense of pur­pose in car­ing for Vir­ginia, despite the harsh con­di­tions.

The local com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing Alice, plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in sup­port­ing Margery and Vir­ginia, with Alice divid­ing her time between vis­it­ing Margery, man­ag­ing house­hold duties, and run­ning the library. Mrs. Brady steps in to help man­age the library, reflect­ing a com­mu­ni­ty effort to adapt to chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances.

Ten­sions arise as Sven, the father of Vir­ginia and Margery’s part­ner, grap­ples with the sit­u­a­tion. Margery’s con­vic­tion that she will not escape a harsh sen­tence prompts a heart-wrench­ing deci­sion to have Sven take Vir­ginia away, hop­ing for a bet­ter future for her away from the prej­u­dices and con­fines of their cur­rent life. Margery refus­es vis­i­tors after Sven’s depar­ture, iso­lat­ing her­self as she braces for the upcom­ing tri­al.

The chap­ter poignant­ly cap­tures the harsh real­i­ties of life in 1923 Ken­tucky, the pow­er dynam­ics at play with­in small com­mu­ni­ties, and the per­son­al sac­ri­fices made in the face of adver­si­ty. The nar­ra­tive weaves togeth­er themes of moth­er­hood, love, sac­ri­fice, and the search for a sem­blance of dig­ni­ty with­in the con­fines of a deeply flawed jus­tice sys­tem. The chap­ter ends on a note of uncer­tain­ty and fore­bod­ing, as the tri­al looms and the char­ac­ters nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of their entwined lives.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

TWENTY-TWO
I spend the next week avoid­ing Andrew Win­ches­ter.
I can’t even deny any­more that I have feel­ings for him. Not just
feel­ings. I have a very seri­ous crush on this man. I think about him all the
time. I even dream about him kiss­ing me.
And he might have feel­ings for me, too, even though he claims he loves
Nina. But the key point is I don’t want to lose this job. You don’t keep jobs
by sleep­ing with your mar­ried boss. So I do my best to stuff all my feel­ings
away. Andrew is at work most of the day any­way. It’s easy enough to stay
out of his way.
Tonight, as I’m putting plates of food out for din­ner, prepar­ing to dash
off before Andrew comes into the room, Nina wan­ders into the din­ing area.
She bobs her head in approval at the salmon with a side of wild rice. And of
course, chick­en nuggets for Cecelia.
“That smells won­der­ful, Mil­lie,” she remarks.
“Thanks.” I hov­er near the kitchen, ready to call it quits for the evening
—our usu­al rou­tine. “Will that be all?”
“Just one thing.” She pats her blond hair. “Were you able to book those
tick­ets for Show­down?”
“Yes!” I snatched up the last two orches­tra seats for Show­down this
Sun­day night—I was so proud of myself. They cost a small for­tune, but the
Win­ches­ters can afford it. “You are in the sixth row from the stage. You
could prac­ti­cal­ly touch the actors.”
“Won­der­ful!” Nina claps her hands togeth­er. “And you booked the hotel
room?”
“At The Plaza.”
Since it’s a bit of a dri­ve into the city, Nina and Andrew will be stay­ing
overnight at The Plaza hotel. Cecelia is going to be stay­ing at a friend’s
house, and I’ll get the whole damn house to myself. I can walk around
naked if I want. (I’m not plan­ning to walk around naked. But it’s nice to
know I could.)
“It will be so love­ly,” Nina sighs. “Andy and I real­ly need this.”
I bite my tongue. I’m not going to com­ment on the state of Nina and
Andrew’s rela­tion­ship, espe­cial­ly since the door slams at that moment,
which means Andrew is home. Suf­fice to say, ever since that doctor’s vis­it
and their sub­se­quent fight, they seem to have been some­what dis­tant from
each oth­er. Not that I’m pay­ing atten­tion, but it’s hard not to notice the
awk­ward polite­ness they have around each oth­er. And Nina her­self seems
off her game. Like right now, her white blouse is but­toned wrong. She
missed a but­ton, and the whole thing is lop­sided. I’m itch­ing to tell her, but
she’ll scream at me if I do, so I keep my mouth shut.
“I hope you have a won­der­ful time,” I say.
“We will!” She beams at me. “I can hard­ly wait all week!”
I frown. “All week? The show is in three days.”
Andrew strides into the kitchen din­ing room, pulling off his tie. He
stops short when he sees me, but he sti­fles a reac­tion. And I sti­fle my own
reac­tion to how hand­some he looks in that suit.
“Three days?” Nina repeats. “Mil­lie, I asked you to book the tick­ets for
a week from Sun­day! I dis­tinct­ly remem­ber.”
“Yes…” I shake my head. “But you told me that over a week ago. So I
booked them for this Sun­day.”
Nina’s cheeks turn pink. “So you admit I told you to book it for a week
from Sun­day and you still booked for this Sun­day?”
“No, what I’m say­ing is—”
“I can’t believe you could be so care­less.” She folds her arms across her
chest. “I can’t make the show this Sun­day. I have to dri­ve Cecelia to her
sum­mer camp in Mass­a­chu­setts Sun­day and I’m spend­ing the night out
there.”
What? I could’ve sworn she told me to book it for this com­ing Sun­day,
and that Cecelia would be stay­ing at a friend’s house. There’s no way I got
this messed up. “Maybe some­body else could take her? I mean, the tick­ets
are non­re­fund­able.”

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER
22
Word still hadn’t come from the Sum­mer Court the fol­low­ing morn­ing, so
Rhysand made good on his deci­sion to bring us to the mor­tal realm.
“What does one wear, exact­ly, in the human lands?” Mor said from
where she sprawled across the foot of my bed. For some­one who claimed to
have been out drink­ing and danc­ing until the Moth­er knew when, she
appeared unfair­ly perky. Cass­ian and Azriel, grum­bling and winc­ing over
break­fast, had looked like they’d been run over by wag­ons. Repeat­ed­ly.
Some small part of me won­dered what it would be like to go out with them
—to see what Velaris might offer at night.
I rifled through the clothes in my armoire. “Lay­ers,” I said. “They …
cov­er every­thing up. The décol­letage might be a lit­tle dar­ing depend­ing on
the event, but … every­thing else gets hid­den beneath skirts and pet­ti­coats
and non­sense.”
“Sounds like the women are used to not hav­ing to run—or fight. I don’t
remem­ber it being that way five hun­dred years ago.”
I paused on an ensem­ble of turquoise with accents of gold—rich, bright,
regal. “Even with the wall, the threat of faeries remained, so … sure­ly
prac­ti­cal clothes would have been nec­es­sary to run, to fight any that crept
through. I won­der what changed.” I pulled out the top and pants for her
approval.
Mor mere­ly nodded—no com­men­tary like Ianthe might have pro­vid­ed,
no beatif­ic inter­ven­tion.
I shoved away the thought, and the mem­o­ry of what she’d tried to do to
Rhys, and went on, “Nowa­days, most women wed, bear chil­dren, and then
plan their children’s mar­riages. Some of the poor might work in the fields,
and a rare few are mer­ce­nar­ies or hired sol­diers, but … the wealth­i­er they
are, the more restrict­ed their free­doms and roles become. You’d think that
mon­ey would buy you the abil­i­ty to do what­ev­er you pleased.”
“Some of the High Fae,” Mor said, pulling at an embroi­dered thread in
my blan­ket, “are the same.”
I slipped behind the dress­ing screen to untie the robe I’d donned
moments before she’d entered to keep me com­pa­ny while I pre­pared for our
jour­ney today.
“In the Court of Night­mares,” she went on, that voice falling soft and a
bit cold once more, “females are … prized. Our vir­gin­i­ty is guard­ed, then
sold off to the high­est bidder—whatever male will be of the most advan­tage
to our fam­i­lies.”
I kept dress­ing, if only to give myself some­thing to do while the hor­ror of
what I began to sus­pect slith­ered through my bones and blood.
“I was born stronger than any­one in my fam­i­ly. Even the males. And I
couldn’t hide it, because they could smell it—the same way you can smell a
High Lord’s Heir before he comes to pow­er. The pow­er leaves a mark, an
… echo. When I was twelve, before I bled, I prayed it meant no male would
take me as a wife, that I would escape what my elder cousins had endured:
love­less, some­times bru­tal, mar­riages.”
I tugged my blouse over my head, and but­toned the vel­vet cuffs at my
wrists before adjust­ing the sheer, turquoise sleeves into place.
“But then I began bleed­ing a few days after I turned sev­en­teen. And the
moment my first blood came, my pow­er awoke in full force, and even that
gods-damned moun­tain trem­bled around us. But instead of being hor­ri­fied,
every sin­gle rul­ing fam­i­ly in the Hewn City saw me as a prize mare. Saw
that pow­er and want­ed it bred into their blood­line, over and over again.”
“What about your par­ents?” I man­aged to say, slip­ping my feet into the
mid­night-blue shoes. It’d be the end of win­ter in the mor­tal lands—most
shoes would be use­less. Actu­al­ly, my cur­rent ensem­ble would be use­less,
but only for the moments I’d be outside—bundled up.
“My fam­i­ly was beside them­selves with glee. They could have their pick
of an alliance with any of the oth­er rul­ing fam­i­lies. My pleas for choice in
the mat­ter went unheard.”
She got out, I remind­ed myself. Mor got out, and now lived with peo­ple
who cared for her, who loved her.
“The rest of the sto­ry,” Mor said as I emerged, “is long, and awful, and
I’ll tell you some oth­er time. I came in here to say I’m not going with you—
to the mor­tal realm.”
“Because of how they treat women?”
Her rich brown eyes were bright, but calm. “When the queens come, I
will be there. I wish to see if I rec­og­nize any of my long-dead friends in
their faces. But … I don’t think I would be able to … behave with any
oth­ers.”
“Did Rhys tell you not to go?” I said tight­ly.
“No,” she said, snort­ing. “He tried to con­vince me to come, actu­al­ly. He
said I was being ridicu­lous. But Cass­ian … he gets it. The two of us wore
him down last night.”
My brows rose a bit. Why they’d gone out and got­ten drunk, no doubt.
To ply their High Lord with alco­hol.
Mor shrugged at the unasked ques­tion in my eyes. “Cass­ian helped Rhys
get me out. Before either had the real rank to do so. For Rhys, get­ting
caught would have been a mild pun­ish­ment, per­haps a bit of social
shun­ning. But Cass­ian … he risked every­thing to make sure I stayed out of
that court. And he laughs about it, but he believes he’s a low-born bas­tard,
not wor­thy of his rank or life here. He has no idea that he’s worth more than
any oth­er male I met in that court—and out­side of it. Him and Azriel, that
is.”
Yes—Azriel, who kept a step away, whose shad­ows trailed him and
seemed to fade in her pres­ence. I opened my mouth to ask about her his­to­ry
with him, but the clock chimed ten. Time to go.
My hair had been arranged before break­fast in a braid­ed coro­net atop my
head, a small dia­dem of gold—flecked with lapis lazuli—set before it.
Match­ing ear­rings dan­gled low enough to brush the sides of my neck, and I
picked up the twist­ing gold bracelets that had been left out on the dress­er,
slid­ing one onto either wrist.
Mor made no comment—and I knew that if had worn noth­ing but my
under­gar­ments, she would have told me to own every inch of it. I turned to
her. “I’d like my sis­ters to meet you. Maybe not today. But if you ever feel
like it …”
She cocked her head.
I rubbed the back of my bare neck. “I want them to hear your sto­ry. And
know that there is a spe­cial strength … ” As I spoke I real­ized I need­ed to
hear it, know it, too. “A spe­cial strength in endur­ing such dark tri­als and
hard­ships … And still remain­ing warm, and kind. Still will­ing to trust—and
reach out.”
Mor’s mouth tight­ened and she blinked a few times.
I went for the door, but paused with my hand on the knob. “I’m sor­ry if I
was not as wel­com­ing to you as you were to me when I arrived at the Night
Court. I was … I’m try­ing to learn how to adjust.”
A pathet­ic, inar­tic­u­late way of explain­ing how ruined I’d become.
But Mor hopped off the bed, opened the door for me, and said, “There
are good days and hard days for me—even now. Don’t let the hard days
win.”
Today, it seemed, would indeed be yet anoth­er hard day.
With Rhys, Cass­ian, and Azriel ready to go—Amren and Mor remain­ing
in Velaris to run the city and plan our inevitable trip to Hybern—I was left
with only one choice: who to fly with.
Rhys would win­now us off the coast, right to the invis­i­ble line where the
wall bisect­ed our world. There was a tear in its mag­ic about half a mile
offshore—which we’d fly through.
But stand­ing in that hall­way, all of them in their fight­ing leathers and me
bun­dled in a heavy, fur-lined cloak, I took one look at Rhys and felt those
hands on my thighs again. Felt how it’d been to look inside his mind, felt
his cold rage, felt him … defend him­self, his peo­ple, his friends, using the
pow­er and masks in his arse­nal. He’d seen and endured such … such
unspeak­able things, and yet … his hands on my thighs had been gen­tle, the
touch like—
I didn’t let myself fin­ish the thought as I said, “I’ll fly with Azriel.”
Rhys and Cass­ian looked as if I’d declared I want­ed to parade through
Velaris in noth­ing but my skin, but the shad­owsinger mere­ly bowed his
head and said, “Of course.” And that, thank­ful­ly, was that.
Rhys win­nowed in Cass­ian first, return­ing a heart­beat lat­er for me and
Azriel.
The spy­mas­ter had wait­ed in silence. I tried not to look too
uncom­fort­able as he scooped me into his arms, those shad­ows that
whis­pered to him stroking my neck, my cheek. Rhys was frown­ing a bit,
and I just gave him a sharp look and said, “Don’t let the wind ruin my hair.”
He snort­ed, gripped Azriel’s arm, and we all van­ished into a dark wind.
Stars and black­ness, Azriel’s scarred hands clench­ing tight­ly around me,
my arms entwined around his neck, brac­ing, wait­ing, count­ing—
Then blind­ing sun­light, roar­ing wind, a plunge down, down—
Then we tilt­ed, shoot­ing straight. Azriel’s body was warm and hard,
though those bru­tal­ized hands were con­sid­er­ate as he gripped me. No
shad­ows trailed us, as if he’d left them in Velaris.
Below, ahead, behind, the vast, blue sea stretched. Above, fortress­es of
clouds plod­ded along, and to my left … A dark smudge on the hori­zon.
Land.
Spring Court land.
I won­dered if Tam­lin was on the west­ern sea bor­der. He’d once hint­ed
about trou­ble there. Could he sense me, sense us, now?
I didn’t let myself think about it. Not as I felt the wall.
As a human, it had been noth­ing but an invis­i­ble shield.
As a faerie … I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it crack­ling with pow­er—
the tang of it coat­ing my tongue.
“It’s abhor­rent, isn’t it,” Azriel said, his low voice near­ly swal­lowed up
by the wind.
“I can see why you—we were deterred for all these cen­turies,” I
admit­ted. Every heart­beat had us rac­ing clos­er to that gar­gan­tu­an,
nau­se­at­ing sense of pow­er.
“You’ll get used to it—the word­ing,” he said. Cling­ing to him so tight­ly, I
couldn’t see his face. I watched the light shift inside the sap­phire Siphon
instead, as if it were the great eye of some half-slum­ber­ing beast from a
frozen waste­land.
“I don’t real­ly know where I fit in any­more,” I admit­ted, per­haps only
because the wind was screech­ing around us and Rhys had already
win­nowed ahead to where Cassian’s dark form flew—beyond the wall.
“I’ve been alive almost five and a half cen­turies, and I’m not sure of that,
either,” Azriel said.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

H OW DID YOU REMAIN SO con­fi­dent? So stead­fast in your resolve?” I
ask Eve­lyn.
“When Don left me? Or when my career went down the tubes?”
“Both, I guess,” I say. “I mean, you had Celia, so it’s a lit­tle dif­fer­ent,
but still.”
Eve­lyn cocks her head slight­ly. “Dif­fer­ent from what?”
“Hm?” I say, lost in my own thoughts.
“You said I had Celia, so it was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent,” Eve­lyn clar­i­fies.
“Dif­fer­ent from what?”
“Sor­ry,” I say. “I was  .  .  . in my own head.” I have momen­tar­i­ly let
my own rela­tion­ship prob­lems seep into what should be a one-way
con­ver­sa­tion.
Eve­lyn shakes her head. “No need to be sor­ry. Just tell me dif­fer­ent
from what.”
I look at her and real­ize that I’ve opened a door that can’t real­ly be
shut. “From my own impend­ing divorce.”
Eve­lyn smiles, almost like the Cheshire Cat. “Now things are
get­ting inter­est­ing,” she says.
It both­ers me, her cav­a­lier atti­tude toward my own vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. It’s
my fault for bring­ing it up. I know that. But she could treat it with
more kind­ness. I’ve exposed myself. I’ve exposed a wound.
“Have you signed the papers?” Eve­lyn asks. “Per­haps with a tiny
heart above the i in Monique? That’s what I would do.”
“I guess I don’t take divorce as light­ly as you,” I say. It comes out
flat­ly. I con­sid­er soft­en­ing, but . . . I don’t.
“No, of course not,” Eve­lyn says kind­ly. “If you did, at your age,
you’d be a cyn­ic.”
“But at your age?” I ask.
“With my expe­ri­ence? A real­ist.”
“That, in and of itself, is awful­ly cyn­i­cal, don’t you think? Divorce is
loss.”
Eve­lyn shakes her head. “Heart­break is loss. Divorce is a piece of
paper.”
I look down to see that I have been doo­dling a cube over and over
with my blue pen. It is start­ing to tear through the page. I nei­ther pick
up my pen nor push hard­er. I mere­ly keep run­ning the ink over the
lines of the cube.
“If you are heart­bro­ken right now, then I feel for you deeply,”
Eve­lyn says. “That I have the utmost respect for. That’s the sort of
thing that can split a per­son in two. But I wasn’t heart­bro­ken when
Don left me. I sim­ply felt like my mar­riage had failed. And those are
very dif­fer­ent things.”
When Eve­lyn says this, I stop my pen in place. I look up at her. And
I won­der why I need­ed Eve­lyn to tell me that.
I won­der why that sort of dis­tinc­tion has nev­er crossed my mind
before.
  *  *  *  
ON MY WALK to the sub­way this evening, I see that Frankie has called
me for the sec­ond time today.
I wait until I’ve rid­den all the way to Brook­lyn and I’m head­ing
down the street toward my apart­ment to respond. It’s almost nine
o’clock, so I decide to text her: Just get­ting out of Evelyn’s now. Sor­ry it’s
so late. Want to talk tomor­row?
I have my key in my front door when I get Frankie’s response:
Tonight is fine. Call as soon as you can.
I roll my eyes. I should nev­er bluff Frankie.
I put my bag down. I pace around the apart­ment. What am I going
to tell her? The way I see it, I have two choic­es.
I can lie and tell her everything’s going fine, that we’re on track for
the June issue and that I’m get­ting Eve­lyn to talk about more con­crete
things.
Or I can tell the truth and poten­tial­ly get fired.
At this point, I’m start­ing to see that get­ting fired might not be so
bad. I’ll have a book to pub­lish in the future, one for which I’d most
like­ly make mil­lions of dol­lars. That could, in turn, get me oth­er
celebri­ty biog­ra­phy oppor­tu­ni­ties. And then, even­tu­al­ly, I could start
find­ing my own top­ics, writ­ing about any­thing I want with the
con­fi­dence that any pub­lish­er would buy it.
But I don’t know when this book will be sold. And if my real goal is
to set myself up to be able to grab what­ev­er sto­ry I want, then
cred­i­bil­i­ty mat­ters. Get­ting fired from Vivant because I stole their
major head­line would not bode well for my rep­u­ta­tion.
Before I can decide what, exact­ly, my plan is, my phone is ring­ing in
my hand.
Frankie Troupe.
“Hel­lo?”
“Monique,” Frankie says, her voice some­how both solic­i­tous and
irri­tat­ed. “What’s going on with Eve­lyn? Tell me every­thing.”
I keep search­ing for ways in which Frankie, Eve­lyn, and I all leave
this sit­u­a­tion get­ting what we want. But I real­ize sud­den­ly that the only
thing I can con­trol is that I get what I want.
And why shouldn’t I?
Real­ly.
Why shouldn’t it be me who comes out on top?
“Frankie, hi, I’m sor­ry I haven’t been more avail­able.”
“That’s fine, that’s fine,” Frankie says. “As long as you’re get­ting
good mate­r­i­al.”
“I am, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, Eve­lyn is no longer inter­est­ed in shar­ing
the piece with Vivant.”
The silence on Frankie’s end of the phone is deaf­en­ing. And then it
is punc­tu­at­ed with a flat, dead “What?”
“I’ve been try­ing to con­vince her for days. That’s why I’ve been
unable to get back to you. I’ve been explain­ing to her that she has to
do this piece for Vivant.”
“If she wasn’t inter­est­ed, why did she call us?”
“She want­ed me,” I say. I do not fol­low this up with any sort of
qual­i­fi­ca­tion. I do not say She want­ed me and here is why or She want­ed
me and I’m so sor­ry about all this.
“She used us to get to you?” Frankie says, as if it’s the most
insult­ing thing she can think of. But the thing is, Frankie used me to
get to Eve­lyn, so . . .
“Yes,” I say. “I think she did. She’s inter­est­ed in a full biog­ra­phy.
Writ­ten by me. I’ve gone along with it in the hopes of chang­ing her
mind.”
“A biog­ra­phy? You’re tak­ing our sto­ry and turn­ing it into a book
instead?”
“It’s what Eve­lyn wants. I’ve been try­ing to con­vince her
oth­er­wise.”
“And have you?” Frankie asks. “Con­vinced her?”
“No,” I say. “Not yet. But I think I might be able to.”
“OK,” Frankie says. “Then do that.”
This is my moment.
“I think I can deliv­er you a mas­sive, head­line-mak­ing Eve­lyn Hugo
sto­ry,” I say. “But if I do, I want to be pro­mot­ed.”
I can hear skep­ti­cism enter Frankie’s voice. “What kind of
pro­mo­tion?”
“Edi­tor at large. I come and go as I please. I choose the sto­ries I
want to tell.”
“No.”
“Then I have no incen­tive to get Eve­lyn to allow the piece to be in
Vivant.”
I can prac­ti­cal­ly hear Frankie weigh­ing her options. She is qui­et,
but there is no ten­sion. It is as if she does not expect me to speak until
she has decid­ed what she will say. “If you get us a cov­er sto­ry,” she
says final­ly, “and she agrees to sit for a pho­to shoot, I’ll make you a
writer at large.”
I con­sid­er the offer, and Frankie jumps in as I’m think­ing. “We only
have one edi­tor at large. Bump­ing Gayle out of the spot she has earned
doesn’t feel right to me. I’d think you could under­stand that. Writer at
large is what I have to give. I won’t exert too much con­trol over what
you can write about. And if you prove your­self quick­ly there, you’ll
move up as every­one else does. It’s fair, Monique.”
I think about it for a moment fur­ther. Writer at large seems
rea­son­able. Writer at large sounds great. “OK,” I say. And then I push

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

22
Those �rst few months after Jay­den came home were a blur. I got a dog. Feli­cia
came in and out of my life.
While I was preg­nant with Jay­den, I’d dyed my hair black. Try­ing to get it
blond again, I turned it pur­ple. I had to go to a beau­ty salon to have them
com­plete­ly strip my hair and make it a real­is­tic shade of brown. It took for­ev­er to
get it right. Near­ly every­thing in my life felt like that. To say the least, there was
some chaos: the breakup with J and going on the rough Onyx tour, mar­ry­ing
some­one who no one seemed to think was a good match, and then try­ing to be a
good moth­er inside of a mar­riage that was col­laps­ing in real time.
And yet, I always felt so hap­py and cre­ative in the stu­dio. Record­ing for
Black­out, I felt so much free­dom. Work­ing with amaz­ing pro­duc­ers, I got to
play. A pro­duc­er named Nate Hills, who record­ed under the name Dan­ja, was
more into dance and EDM than pop; he intro­duced me to new sounds and I got
to stretch my voice in di�erent ways.
I loved that no one was over­think­ing things and that I got to say what I liked
and didn’t like. I knew exact­ly what I want­ed, and I loved so much of what was
o�ered to me. Com­ing into the stu­dio and hear­ing these incred­i­ble sounds and
get­ting to put down a vocal on them was fun. Despite my rep­u­ta­tion at the time,
I was focused and excit­ed to work when I came in. It was what was going on
out­side the stu­dio that was so upset­ting.
The paparazzi were like an army of zom­bies try­ing to get in every sec­ond.
They tried to scale the walls and take pic­tures through win­dows. Try­ing to enter
and exit a build­ing felt like being part of a mil­i­tary oper­a­tion. It was ter­ri­fy­ing.
My A&R rep, Tere­sa LaBar­bera Whites, who was a moth­er, too, did what she
could to help. She put a baby swing at one of our stu­dios, which I thought was a
real­ly sweet ges­ture.
The album was a kind of bat­tle cry. After years of being metic­u­lous, try­ing to
please my mom and my dad, it was my time to say “Fuck you.” I quit doing
busi­ness the way I always had before. I start­ed doing videos on the street myself.
I would go into bars with a friend, and the friend would just bring a cam­era, and
that’s how we shot “Gimme More.”
To be clear, I’m not say­ing I’m proud of it. “Gimme More” is by far the worst
video I’ve ever shot in my life. I don’t like it at all—it’s so tacky. It looks like we
only spent three thou­sand dol­lars to shoot it. And yet, even though it was bad, it
worked for what it was. And the more I start­ed going and doing things myself,
the more inter­est­ing peo­ple start­ed notic­ing and want­i­ng to work with me. I
wound up ran­dom­ly �nding real­ly good peo­ple, just by word of mouth.
Black­out was one of the eas­i­est and most sat­is­fy­ing albums I ever made. It
came togeth­er real­ly fast. I would go into the stu­dio, be in there for thir­ty
min­utes, and leave. That wasn’t by design—it had to be fast. If I stayed in one
place for too long, the paparazzi out­side would mul­ti­ply like I was a cor­nered
Pac-Man being chased by ghosts. My sur­vival mech­a­nism was to get in and get
out of stu­dios as fast as pos­si­ble.
When I record­ed “Hot as Ice,” I walked into the stu­dio and there were six
gigan­tic guys in the room with me, sit­ting there. That was prob­a­bly one of the
most spir­i­tu­al record­ing moments of my life, being with all those guys qui­et­ly
lis­ten­ing as I sang. My voice went the high­est it had ever gone. I sang it two times
through and left. I didn’t even have to try.
If mak­ing Black­out felt good, life was still tear­ing at me from every di�erent
direc­tion. From one minute to the next, every­thing was so extreme. I need­ed to
have more self-worth and val­ue than I was able to con­jure back then. And yet,
even though it was a very hard time in just about every oth­er way, artis­ti­cal­ly it
was great. Some­thing about where I was in my head made me a bet­ter artist.
I felt an excit­ing rush mak­ing the Black­out album. I was able to work in the
best stu­dios. It was a wild time.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER 22
Patri­cia didn’t want to talk that night, and Carter had the good sense
not to push it. She went to bed ear­ly. Carter thought noth­ing was
wrong? Let him wor­ry about Korey and Blue. Let him feed them and
keep them safe. Down­stairs she heard him go out and bring back
take-out Chi­nese for the kids, and the buzzing rise and fall of A
Seri­ous Con­ver­sa­tion fil­tered up from the din­ing room. After Korey
and Blue went to bed, Carter slept on the den sofa.
The next morn­ing, she saw Des­tiny Taylor’s pic­ture in the paper
and read the sto­ry with numb accep­tance. The nine-year-old had
wait­ed until it was her turn in the bath­room of her fos­ter home, then
took den­tal floss, wrapped it around her neck over and over, and
hanged her­self from the tow­el rack. The police were inves­ti­gat­ing
whether it might be abuse.
“I’d like to speak to you in the din­ing room,” Carter said from the
door to the den.
Patri­cia looked up from the paper. Carter need­ed to shave.
“That child killed her­self,” she said. “The one we told you about,
Des­tiny Tay­lor, she killed her­self just like we warned you she would.”
“Pat­ty, from where I’m stand­ing, we stopped a lynch mob from
run­ning an inno­cent man out of town.”
“It was the woman whose trail­er you came to in Six Mile,” Patri­cia
said. “You saw that lit­tle girl. Nine years old. Why does a nine-year-
old child kill her­self? What could make her do that?”
“Our chil­dren need you,” Carter said. “Do you see what your book
club has done to Blue?”
“My book club?” she asked, off bal­ance.
“The mor­bid things y’all read,” Carter said. “Did you see the
video­tapes on top of the TV? He got Night and Fog from the library.
It’s Holo­caust footage. That’s not what a nor­mal ten-year-old boy
looks at.”
“A nine-year-old girl hanged her­self with den­tal floss and you
won’t even both­er to ask why,” Patri­cia said. “Imag­ine if that was
your last mem­o­ry of Blue—hanging from the tow­el rod, floss cut­ting
into his neck—”
“Jesus Christ, Pat­ty, where’d you learn to talk this way?”
He walked into the din­ing room. Patri­cia thought about not
fol­low­ing, then real­ized that this wouldn’t end until they’d played out
every sin­gle moment Carter had planned. She got up and fol­lowed.
The morn­ing sun made the yel­low walls of the din­ing room glow.
Carter stood fac­ing her from the oth­er end of the table, hands behind
his back, one of her every­day saucers in front of him.
“I real­ize I bear some of the respon­si­bil­i­ty for how bad things have
got­ten,” he said. “You’ve been under a great deal of stress from what
hap­pened with my moth­er, and you nev­er prop­er­ly processed the
trau­ma of being injured. I let the fact that you’re my wife cloud my
judg­ment and I missed the symp­toms.”
“Why are you treat­ing me like this?” she asked.
He ignored her, con­tin­u­ing his speech.
“You live an iso­lat­ed life,” Carter said. “Your read­ing tastes are
mor­bid. Both your chil­dren are going through dif­fi­cult phas­es. I have
a high-pres­sure job that requires me to put in long hours. I didn’t
real­ize how close to the edge you were.”
He picked up the saucer, car­ried it to her end of the table, and set
it down with a click. A green-and-white cap­sule rolled around in the
cen­ter.
“I’ve seen this turn people’s lives around,” Carter said.
“I don’t want it,” she said.
“It’ll help you regain your equi­lib­ri­um,” he said.
She pinched the cap­sule between her thumb and fore­fin­ger. Dista
Prozac was print­ed on the side.
“And I have to take it or you’ll leave me?” she asked.
“Don’t be so dra­mat­ic,” Carter said. “I’m offer­ing you help.”
He reached into his pock­et and pulled out a white bot­tle. It rat­tled
when he set it on the table.
“One pill, twice a day, with food,” he said. “I’m not going to count
the pills. I’m not going to watch you take them. You can flush them
down the toi­let if you want. This isn’t me try­ing to con­trol you. This
is me try­ing to help you. You’re my wife and I believe you can get
bet­ter.”
At least he had the good sense not to try to kiss her before he left.
After he was gone, Patri­cia picked up the phone and called Grace.
Her machine picked up, so she called Kit­ty.
“I can’t talk,” Kit­ty said.
“Did you see the paper this morn­ing?” Patri­cia asked. “That was
Des­tiny Tay­lor, page B‑6.”
“I don’t want to hear about those kind of things any­more,” Kit­ty
said.
“He knows we’ve gone to the police,” Patri­cia said. “Think of what
he’s going to do to us.”
“He’s com­ing to our house,” Kit­ty said.
“You have to get out of there,” Patri­cia said.
“For sup­per,” Kit­ty said. “To meet the fam­i­ly. Horse wants him to
know there are no hard feel­ings.”
“But why?” Patri­cia asked.
“Because that’s how Horse is,” Kit­ty said.
“We can’t give up just because the rest of the men sud­den­ly think
he’s their pal.”
“Do you know what we could lose?” Kit­ty asked. “It’s Slick and
Leland’s busi­ness. It’s Ed’s job. It’s our mar­riages, our fam­i­lies.
Horse has put all our mon­ey into this project he’s doing with
Leland.”
“That lit­tle girl died,” Patri­cia said. “You didn’t see her, but she was
bare­ly nine.”
“There’s noth­ing we can do about it,” Kit­ty said. “We have to take
care of our fam­i­lies and let oth­er peo­ple wor­ry about theirs. If
someone’s hurt­ing those chil­dren, the police will stop them.”
She got Grace’s machine again, then tried Maryellen.
“I can’t talk,” Maryellen said. “I’m right in the mid­dle of
some­thing.”
“Call me back lat­er,” Patri­cia said.
“I’m busy all day,” Maryellen said.
“That lit­tle girl killed her­self,” Patri­cia said. “Des­tiny Tay­lor.”
“I have to run,” Maryellen said.
“It’s on page B‑6,” Patri­cia said. “There’s going to be anoth­er one
after this, and anoth­er after that, and anoth­er, and anoth­er.”
Maryellen spoke qui­et and low.
“Patri­cia,” she said. “Stop.”
“It doesn’t have to be Ed,” Patri­cia said. “What were the names of
those oth­er two police detec­tives? Can­non and Bus­sell?”
“Don’t!” Maryellen said, too loud. Patri­cia heard pant­i­ng over the
phone and real­ized Maryellen was cry­ing. “Hold on,” she said, and
sniffed hard. Patri­cia heard her put the phone down.
After a moment, Maryellen picked it back up.
“I had to shut the bed­room door,” she said. “Patri­cia, lis­ten to me.
When we lived in New Jer­sey, we came home from Alexa’s fourth
birth­day par­ty and our front door was stand­ing wide open. Some­one
broke in and uri­nat­ed on the liv­ing room car­pet, turned over all our
book­cas­es, stuffed our wed­ding pic­tures in the upstairs bath­tub and
left it run­ning so it backed up and flood­ed the ceil­ing. Our clothes
were hacked to shreds. Our mat­tress­es and uphol­stery slashed. And
in the baby’s room they’d writ­ten Die Pigs on the wall. In feces.”
Patri­cia lis­tened to the line hum while Maryellen caught her
breath.
“Ed was a police offi­cer and he couldn’t pro­tect his own fam­i­ly,”
Maryellen con­tin­ued. “It ate him alive. When he was sup­posed to be
at work he parked across the street and watched our house. He
missed shifts. They want­ed to give him a few weeks off, but he
need­ed the hours, so he kept going in. It wasn’t his fault, Pat­ty, but
they sent him to pick up a shoplifter at the mall and the boy lipped
off and Ed hit him. He didn’t mean to, it wasn’t even that hard, but
the boy lost some of the hear­ing in his left ear. It was one of those
freak things. We didn’t come down here because Ed want­ed
some­place qui­eter. We came down here because this was all he could
find. Ed used up all his favors get­ting trans­ferred.”
She blew her nose. Patri­cia wait­ed.
“If any­one talks to the police,” Maryellen said, “they’re going to
fol­low it back to Ed. That boy he hit was eleven years old. He will
nev­er find anoth­er job. Promise me, Patri­cia. No more.”
“I can’t,” Patri­cia said.
“Patri­cia, please—” Maryellen began.
Patri­cia hung up.
She tried Grace again. The machine was still pick­ing up so she
called Slick.
“I saw it in the paper this morn­ing,” Slick said. “That poor girl’s
moth­er.”
Patricia’s heart unclenched.
“Kit­ty is too fright­ened to do any­thing,” Patri­cia said. “She’s buried
her head in the sand. And Maryellen is in a bad posi­tion because of
Ed.”
“That man is evil,” Slick said. “Look how he twist­ed us up like
pret­zels and made us seem like fools. He knew exact­ly how to get
Leland’s trust.”
“He says he got that mon­ey he put into Gra­cious Cay from Ann
Sav­age,” Patri­cia said. “But that’s dirty mon­ey if I’ve ever seen it.”
“I know, but he’s Leland’s busi­ness part­ner now,” Slick con­tin­ued.
“And I can’t accuse him of this kind of thing with­out cut­ting my own
family’s throat. We’ve been there before, Patri­cia. I’m not going back
there again. I will not do that to my chil­dren.”
“This is about children’s lives,” Patri­cia said. “That mat­ters more
than mon­ey.”
“You’ve nev­er lost your house,” Slick said. “You’ve nev­er had to
explain to your chil­dren why they have to move in with their
grand­moth­er, or why you have to take the dog to the pound because
food stamps don’t cov­er dog food.”
“If you’d met Des­tiny Tay­lor you wouldn’t be able to hard­en your
heart,” Patri­cia said.
“My fam­i­ly is my rock,” Slick said. “You’ve nev­er lost every­thing. I
have. Let Destiny’s moth­er wor­ry about Des­tiny. I know you think
this makes me a bad per­son, but I need to turn inward and be a good
stew­ard to my fam­i­ly right now. I’m sor­ry.”
Grace’s machine picked up again when she called back, so Patri­cia
got her purse and went over to her house, step­ping out into the blast
fur­nace of the day. By the time she rang Grace’s bell, sweat was
already seep­ing through her blouse. She let the echoes of the chimes
die inside the house, then rang again. The door­bell got loud­er as Mrs.
Greene opened the door.
“I didn’t know you were help­ing Grace today,” Patri­cia said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Greene said, look­ing down at Patri­cia. “She’s
feel­ing poor­ly.”
“I’m sor­ry to hear that,” Patri­cia said, try­ing to step inside.
Mrs. Greene didn’t move. Patri­cia stopped, one foot on the
thresh­old.
“I’m just going to say hel­lo for a quick minute,” Patri­cia said.
Mrs. Greene inhaled through her nos­trils. “I don’t think she wants
to see any­one,” she said.
“I’ll only be a minute,” Patri­cia said. “Did she tell you what
hap­pened yes­ter­day?”
Some­thing con­fused and con­flict­ed flick­ered through Mrs.
Greene’s eyes, and then she said, “Yes.”
“I have to tell her we can’t stop.”
“Des­tiny Tay­lor died,” Mrs. Greene said.
“I know,” Patri­cia said. “I’m so sor­ry.”
“You promised you’d get her back to her moth­er and now she’s
dead,” Mrs. Greene said, then turned and dis­ap­peared into the
house.
Patri­cia stepped into the cool, dark house. Her skin con­tract­ed and
broke out in goose pim­ples. She’d nev­er felt the air con­di­tion­ing
turned this low before.
She walked down the hall, into the din­ing room. The over­head
chan­de­lier was on but it only seemed to make the room dark­er.
Grace sat at one end of the table in slacks and a navy turtle­neck
beneath a gray sweater. The table was cov­ered in trash.
“Patri­cia,” Grace said. “I’m not up to see­ing vis­i­tors.”
She had straw­ber­ry jam clot­ted in the cor­ner of her mouth, and as
Patri­cia came clos­er she saw it was a scab crust­ed around a split lip.
“What hap­pened?” she asked, rais­ing her fin­gers to the same place
on the cor­ner of her own mouth.
“Oh,” Grace said, and made her face look hap­py. “The sil­li­est thing.
I was in a car acci­dent.”
“A what?” Patri­cia asked. “Are you all right?”
She’d just seen Grace last night. When had she had time to get in a
car acci­dent?
“I ran to Har­ris Teeter this morn­ing,” Grace said, smil­ing. It
cracked the scab and Patri­cia saw wet blood gleam­ing in the wound.
“I was back­ing out of my space and backed right into a man in a
Jeep.”
“Who was it?” Patri­cia asked. “Did you get his insur­ance?”
Grace was already dis­miss­ing her before she fin­ished.
“No need,” she said. “It was just a sil­ly thing. He was more shak­en
up than me.”
She gave Patri­cia anoth­er enthu­si­as­tic smile. It made Patri­cia feel
ill, so she looked down at the table to gath­er her thoughts. A
card­board box sat at one end, and its dark wood sur­face was cov­ered
in jagged, white shards of bro­ken porce­lain. A del­i­cate han­dle
pro­trud­ed from a ceram­ic curve and Patri­cia rec­og­nized an orange
and yel­low but­ter­fly, and then her vision widened and took in the
entire table.
“The wed­ding chi­na,” she said.
She couldn’t help it. The words just fell out of her mouth. The
entire set had been smashed. Shards were spread across the table
like bone frag­ments. She felt hor­ri­fied, as if she were see­ing a
muti­lat­ed corpse.
“It was an acci­dent,” Grace began.
“Did James Har­ris do this?” Patri­cia asked. “Did he try to
intim­i­date you? Did he come here and threat­en you?”
She tore her eyes away from the car­nage and saw Grace’s face. It
was pinched with fury.
“Do not ever say that man’s name again,” Grace said. “Not to me,
not to any­one. Not if you want our rela­tions to remain cor­dial.”
“It was him,” Patri­cia said.
“No,” Grace snapped. “You are not lis­ten­ing to what I am say­ing. I
shook his hand and apol­o­gized because you made fools of us all. You
humil­i­at­ed us in front of our hus­bands, in front of a stranger, in front
of your chil­dren. I tried to tell you before and you wouldn’t lis­ten, but
I am telling you now. As soon as I’ve cleared up this…mess”—her
voice cracked—“I am phon­ing every mem­ber of the book club and
telling them in no uncer­tain lan­guage that this mat­ter is at an end
and will nev­er, ever be men­tioned again. And we will wel­come this
man into book club and do what­ev­er it takes to put this behind us.”
“What did he do to you?” Patri­cia asked.
“You did this to me,” Grace said. “You made me trust you. And I
looked like a fool. You humil­i­at­ed me in front of my hus­band.”
“I didn’t—” Patri­cia tried.
“You caught me up in your play­act­ing,” Grace said. “You arranged
this ama­teur the­atri­cal event in your liv­ing room and some­how
con­vinced me to participate—I must have been out of my mind.”
The morn­ing flowed into Patricia’s limbs like black sludge, fill­ing
her up as Grace talked.
“This tawdry soap opera you’ve imag­ined between your­self and
James Har­ris,” Grace said. “I’d almost sus­pect you were…sexually
frus­trat­ed.”
Patri­cia couldn’t stop her­self. The anger wasn’t hers. She was only
a chan­nel. It came from some­place else, it had to, because there was
so much of it.
“What do you do all day, Grace?” she asked, and heard her voice
echo­ing off the din­ing room walls. “Ben is off to col­lege. Ben­nett is at
work. All you do is look down your nose at the rest of us, hide in this
house, and clean.”
“Do you ever think how lucky you are?” Grace asked. “Your
hus­band works him­self to the bone pro­vid­ing for you and the
chil­dren. He’s kind, he doesn’t raise his voice in anger. All your needs
are catered to, yet you weave these lurid fan­tasies out of bore­dom.”
“I’m the only per­son who sees real­i­ty,” Patri­cia said. “Some­thing is
wrong here, some­thing big­ger than your grandmother’s chi­na, and
your sil­ver pol­ish, and your man­ners, and next month’s book, and
you’re too scared to face it. So you just sit in your house and scrub
away like a good lit­tle wife.”
“You say that like it’s noth­ing,” Grace wailed. “I am a good per­son,
and I am a good wife, and a good moth­er. And, yes, I clean my
house, because that is my job. It is my place in this world. It is what I
am here to do. And I am sat­is­fied with that. And I don’t need to
fan­ta­size that I’m…I’m Nan­cy Drew to be hap­py. I can be hap­py with
what I do and who I am.”
“Clean all you want,” Patri­cia said. “But when­ev­er Ben­nett has a
drink, he’s still going to smack you in the mouth.”
Grace stood, frozen in shock. Patri­cia couldn’t believe she had said
that. They stayed like that in the freez­ing cold din­ing room for a long
moment, and Patri­cia knew their friend­ship would nev­er recov­er.
She turned and left the room.
She found Mrs. Greene dust­ing the ban­is­ter in the front hall.
“You don’t believe this, do you?” Patri­cia asked her. “You know
who he real­ly is.”
Mrs. Greene made her face per­fect­ly calm.
“I spoke with Mrs. Cavanaugh and she explained to me that y’all
wouldn’t be able to help any­more,” Mrs. Greene said. “She told me
every­one in Six Mile are on our own. She explained every­thing to me
in great detail.”
“It’s not true,” Patri­cia said.
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Greene said, smil­ing dim­ly. “I under­stand.
From here on out, I don’t expect any­thing from any of y’all.”
“I’m on your side,” Patri­cia said. “I just need some time for
every­thing to set­tle down.”
“You’re on your side,” Mrs. Greene said. “Don’t ever fool your­self
about that.”
Then she turned her back on Patri­cia and kept dust­ing Grace’s
home.
Some­thing explod­ed red and black inside Patricia’s brain and the
next thing she knew she was storm­ing into her house, stand­ing on
the sun porch, see­ing Korey slumped in the big chair star­ing at the
TV.
“Would you please turn that off and go down­town or to the beach
or some­where?” Patri­cia snapped. “It is one o’clock in the after­noon.”
“Dad said I didn’t have to lis­ten to you,” Korey told her. “He said
you were going through a phase.”
It touched off a fire inside her, but Patri­cia had the clar­i­ty to see
how care­ful­ly Carter had built this trap for her. Any­thing she did
would prove him right. She could hear him say­ing, in his smooth
psy­chi­atric tones, It’s a sign of how sick you are, that you can’t see
how sick you are.
She took a deep breath. She would not react. She would not
par­tic­i­pate in this any­more. She went into the din­ing room and saw
the Prozac in its saucer and the bot­tle of pills next to it. She snatched
them up and took them into the kitchen.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

22
For the next two weeks, all I can think about is the way Eddie kept creep­ing around the lake house,
and I find myself doing the same thing back in Thorn­field Estates. Going down hall­ways, open­ing
clos­ets, pac­ing.
Stand­ing in front of closed doors.
For the first time since I start­ed see­ing Eddie, I feel lone­ly.
I imag­ine bring­ing it up to Emi­ly or Camp­bell, pow­er-walk­ing around the neigh­bor­hood, all,
“Hey, girls, Eddie took me to the lake house where his wife died; weird, right?”
Fuck that.
But peo­ple are still talk­ing, I know.
When I do man­age to leave the house, even just to go to Roast­ed for a fan­cy cof­fee, I hear two
women I don’t even know talk­ing about Bea.
Two old­er ladies, sit­ting at a table near a win­dow, one of them with her phone in her hand. “I
ordered things from her web­site every Christ­mas,” she says to her friend. “She was such a
sweet­heart.”
I edge clos­er just as the oth­er one says, “It was the hus­band, you know it was.”
“Mmmh­m­mm,” her friend agrees, low­er­ing her voice to whis­per, “It always is.”
But which hus­band? There are two involved here, and one of them is about to be my hus­band.
Then the lady hold­ing her phone says, “It’s just such a shame she got caught up in it. You know
that’s what hap­pened. He prob­a­bly didn’t want to kill both of them, but they were both there, and…”
“And what else could he do?” her friend says. “It was the only option.”
Like “mur­der­ing some­one” is the same as say­ing, “Sure, Pep­si is fine,” when you order Coke.
These fuck­ing peo­ple.
I keep lis­ten­ing, try­ing to dis­cern whether they mean Tripp or Eddie, Bea or Blanche, so that the
barista has to call, “Hazel­nut soy lat­te for Jane?” three times before I remem­ber I’m Jane.
I can’t keep doing this.
I need to talk to some­one. I need to know what hap­pened out there on that lake.
Detec­tive Laurent’s card is still in my purse, and I think about call­ing her, just casu­al­ly check­ing in,
see­ing if there’s any­thing I can do to help, but even I can’t fake that lev­el of con­fi­dence.
No, the less I talk to the police, the bet­ter.
So, I decide to talk to some­one I dis­like near­ly as much.
When Tripp accept­ed my text invi­ta­tion to lunch, I’d been a lit­tle sur­prised, but now here we sit at
the pub in the vil­lage, the one I’ve nev­er been to because it always seemed like the kind of place guys
like Tripp would fre­quent.
“I’m sure you’re won­der­ing why I asked you to lunch,” I tell him, going for the whole “hes­i­tant
col­lege girl” thing. My hair is loose today so I can ner­vous­ly tuck it behind my ears as I talk, and
while I’m not in the jeans and T‑shirts I always wore to work at his house, I’m in one of the more
casu­al out­fits I picked up after the engage­ment, a plain beige shirt­dress that I know doesn’t
par­tic­u­lar­ly flat­ter me.
Snort­ing, Tripp picks up his Rueben and dips it in the extra Thou­sand Island he ordered. “Let me
guess,” he says. “Some­one told you the rumors about Blanche and Eddie, and now you want to know
if it’s true.”
My shock is not feigned. I real­ly am that blink­ing, stam­mer­ing girl I’ve pre­tend­ed to be so often.
“What?” I final­ly say, and he looks up.
Tripp’s gaze sharp. “Wait, it’s not about that?” He frowns a lit­tle, lick­ing dress­ing off his thumb.
“Well, shit. Okay, then. So what, you just want­ed to hang out?”
I sip my beer to buy some time, and I hate this, feel­ing like I’m out of con­trol, that this thing I set
up is already fucked.
“I want­ed to talk to you because I know you’re going through the same thing Eddie is, and I just
want­ed to see how you were doing, to be hon­est.”
A lit­tle wound­ed sharp­ness in my tone, eyes meet­ing his then slid­ing back to the table. I can still
keep this on track, even if I do want to lunge across the table and shake him until he tells me
every­thing about Eddie and Blanche.
Some of Tripp’s smug­ness drains away, and he puts his sand­wich down, pick­ing up his beer.
“Yeah. It was … dif­fer­ent when I thought she drowned. Now this, it’s … well, it’s a hell of a thing.”
He drains near­ly half his beer, set­ting it back on the table with a not-so-dis­creet burp into his
nap­kin. “How is Eddie?”
Tripp’s stare is point­ed, and I see now that he has his own rea­sons for accept­ing this invi­ta­tion,
and they have noth­ing to do with being neigh­bor­ly.
“I can’t real­ly speak for him,” I reply, care­ful now, push­ing my fries around my plate. “But I know
he offered to coop­er­ate with the police. Any­thing he can do to be help­ful.”
Which is true. Eddie’s gone down to the sta­tion twice now to answer ques­tions, ques­tions he’d
nev­er told me the specifics of, and I won­der if that’s what Tripp is fish­ing for. Won­der­ing how much
Eddie is say­ing, what is he say­ing, and not for the first time, I won­der if this was more dan­ger­ous than
I’d thought, arrang­ing to meet him. And not just because some­one might see us.
Drum­ming his fin­gers on the table, he nods, but his gaze is far off now, and we sit there in an
excru­ci­at­ing silence for too long before he says, “There wasn’t any­thing. Between Blanche and Eddie.
It was just your usu­al neigh­bor­hood bull­shit. Eddie’s com­pa­ny was doing some work on our house, I
was busy, so I let Blanche han­dle it. They hung out a lot, but Blanche and I were good. And hon­est­ly,
even if I thought she’d cheat on me, she nev­er would’ve fucked over Bea.”
He gri­maces before adding, “Although Bea nev­er deserved that loy­al­ty if you ask me, but…”
His words just hang there, and I push, the lit­tlest bit.
“You said that Bea took a lot of … inspi­ra­tion from Blanche.”
“Basi­cal­ly took her whole life, yeah, but they both end­ed up in the same place, didn’t they?
Bot­tom of Smith fuck­ing Lake.”
Tip­ping his head back, he sighs. “Any­ways, if Emi­ly Clark or Camp­bell or any of those oth­er
bitch­es try to tell you Eddie and Blanche were sleep­ing togeth­er, it was just gos­sip. Maybe even
wish­ful think­ing, since it’s not like I was ever all that pop­u­lar with that crowd.”
What­ev­er I was going to get out of Tripp is gone now, I can tell. He’s slip­ping back into his
bit­ter­ness, and when he orders anoth­er beer, I make a big show of check­ing my watch. “Oh, shit, I
have a hair appoint­ment,” I say.
“Sure you do.” His tone is sar­cas­tic but he doesn’t press fur­ther, and when I try to leave a twen­ty
to cov­er my lunch, he waves it off.
Back at the house, I go back to my com­put­er, pulling up Emily’s Face­book page, look­ing for any
pic­tures of Blanche with Eddie, but there’s noth­ing. Not on Campbell’s, either, and while Blanche is
clear­ly tagged in a few pic­tures, it’s a dead link to her page, which I assume some­one in her fam­i­ly
took down.
I’ve been so fix­at­ed on Bea, it nev­er occurred to me to look that close­ly at Blanche.
Now it seems that was a mis­take.
Eddie doesn’t get home until late. I’m in the bath­tub, bub­bles up to my chin, but I hear him long before
I see him—the front door unlock­ing, his foot­steps down the hall, the door to the bed­room open­ing.
And then he’s there, lean­ing against the door, watch­ing me.
“Good day?” I ask, but instead of answer­ing, he asks a ques­tion of his own.
“Why did you have lunch with Tripp Ingra­ham today?”
Sur­prised, I sit up a lit­tle, water slosh­ing. I fuck­ing love this tub, so deep and long I could lie
down flat if I want­ed to, but right now, I wish I weren’t in it, wish I weren’t naked and vul­ner­a­ble.
Usu­al­ly, the size dif­fer­ence between us is kind of a turn-on. Eddie is sleek, but brawny—he’s got real
mus­cle, the kind you get from actu­al­ly work­ing, not just going to the gym. He makes me feel even
small­er and more del­i­cate than I am.
But for the first time, it occurs to me how easy it would be for him to hurt me. To over­pow­er me.
“How did you know about that?” I ask, and I know imme­di­ate­ly it’s the wrong response. Eddie
isn’t scowl­ing, but he’s doing that thing again, that forced casu­al­ness, like this con­ver­sa­tion doesn’t
real­ly mean that much to him even though he is prac­ti­cal­ly vibrat­ing with ten­sion.
“I mean, it’s a small town, and trust me, peo­ple were dying to tell me they saw you out with him.
Thanks for that, by the way. Real­ly fun texts to get.”
Pissed off, I stand up, reach­ing for the tow­el hang­ing next to the bath. “Do you hon­est­ly think I
have any inter­est in Tripp Ingra­ham?”
Sigh­ing, Eddie turns away. “No,” he acknowl­edges, “but you have to think about how things look.
Espe­cial­ly now.”
He moves back into the bed­room and I stand there, still naked, still hold­ing the tow­el, drip­ping
onto the mar­ble floor and look­ing after him.
I have worked so hard to present a cer­tain ver­sion of myself to Eddie, to every­one, real­ly, but in
that moment, it snaps.
“How it looks?” I repeat, fol­low­ing him into the bed­room, wrap­ping the tow­el around myself.
“No, Eddie, I didn’t think about how it looks.”
“Of course, you didn’t. Let me guess, you also didn’t think about how it might look for my fiancée
to be hand­ing over wads of mon­ey to the guy she used to live with.”
I am frozen stand­ing there in my tow­el, my stom­ach clench­ing. I’m too rat­tled to even try to lie.
“What?”
Eddie is look­ing at me now with an expres­sion I’ve nev­er seen before. “Did you think I didn’t
know, Jane? Did it nev­er occur to you to come to me?”
How? How the fuck could he have known? That first time, the mon­ey I gave him was mine. The
sec­ond, yes, that was Eddie’s, but I was care­ful. I was so care­ful.
“He called me, too,” Eddie says, his hands on his hips, his head tilt­ed down. “Some bull­shit sto­ry
about peo­ple in Phoenix look­ing for you.”
This can’t be hap­pen­ing; he can’t know. I can’t breathe.
“Did he tell you why?” I ask, my voice bare­ly above a whis­per, and Eddie looks up at me again,
his eyes hard.
“I didn’t ask. I told him to go fuck him­self, which is what you should’ve done the sec­ond he
called.”
He steps clos­er, so close I can prac­ti­cal­ly feel the heat radi­at­ing off of him. I’m still stand­ing
there, not even wrapped in my tow­el, just hold­ing it in front of me, shiv­er­ing with more than just cold.
“That’s what you do when peo­ple threat­en you, Jane. When they try to fuck you over. You don’t
give in to them, you don’t give them what they want, you remind them that you’re the one in charge,
you’re mak­ing the rules.”
Eddie reach­es out then, tak­ing me by the shoul­ders, and for the first time since I met him, I stiff­en
at his touch.
He feels it, and the cor­ners of his mouth twist down, but he doesn’t let me go. “I don’t give a fuck
why some­one in Phoenix is try­ing to find you. What I care about is that when he came to you with this
shit, you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about it.”
I don’t know what to say, so I just stand there, look­ing down, want­i­ng him to let me go, want­i­ng
him to leave, and final­ly, he sighs and drops his hands.
“You know what?” he says, step­ping back and reach­ing into his jack­et pock­et. “Here.”
He pulls out a slip of paper and forces it into my hand.
My damp skin near­ly smudges the ink, but I see it’s a phone num­ber, one with a Phoenix area
code. “This is the num­ber of who­ev­er was call­ing John.”
I star­tle, blink­ing down at the paper. “He gave this to you?”
Eddie doesn’t answer that, say­ing, “The point is, Jane, I’ve had this num­ber in my wal­let for the
past month. Before I asked you to mar­ry me. And I nev­er called it. Not once. You know why?”
I shake my head even though I know what he’s about to say.
“Because I trust you, Janie.”
He turns, head­ing for the bed­room door, and then stops, look­ing at me. “It would be nice to get the
same in return.”
With that, he’s gone, and I sink to the edge of the tub, my knees shak­ing.
But it’s not because of the num­ber I hold in my hand. It’s not know­ing that Eddie’s had it all this
time, that at any point over the past month, he could’ve called it and learned … every­thing.
It’s because of what he said. How he looked.
That’s what you do when peo­ple threat­en you, Jane.

After an invig­o­rat­ing yet per­ilous adven­ture in Ruri­ta­nia, our nar­ra­tor finds his way back home, choos­ing to recu­per­ate in the tran­quil­i­ty of the Tyrol. Here, in seclu­sion, he begins to mend in body and spir­it, qui­et­ly sig­nal­ing his well­be­ing to his broth­er to stave off any undue con­cern. With facial hair regrown to con­ceal his recent past, he ven­tures to Paris for a reunion with his friend George Feath­er­ly, where he is com­pelled to craft a veneer of nor­mal­cy over his recent extra­or­di­nary expe­ri­ences. This involves fab­ri­cat­ing tales of roman­tic escapades to mask his true adven­tures in Ruri­ta­nia.

In Paris, he also touch­es base with Madame de Mauban, trad­ing let­ters that speak vol­umes of the unspo­ken, of sac­ri­fices, secrets kept, and lives irre­versibly altered by the events in Ruri­ta­nia. His return home stirs a mix of tri­umph and expect­ed rep­ri­mand. His sis­ter-in-law, Rose, is both bemused and frus­trat­ed by his appar­ent lack of ambi­tion and duty. Mean­while, his con­tem­pla­tion of a poten­tial diplo­mat­ic posi­tion in Strel­sau is quick­ly shelved when the absur­di­ty of returning—as some­one so visu­al­ly indis­tin­guish­able from the King—is acknowl­edged.

Our nar­ra­tor intro­spec­tive­ly nav­i­gates through his sub­se­quent days, find­ing lit­tle allure in the soci­etal cir­cles that once cap­ti­vat­ed him. In the calm soli­tude of his coun­try retreat, he con­tem­plates the future, enter­tained by the fleet­ing thought that des­tiny may yet have plans for him—plans per­haps inter­twined with those of young Rupert of Hentzau, his adver­sary still at large. Despite lead­ing a sub­dued exis­tence, he is annu­al­ly drawn to Dres­den, where he shares in the fel­low­ship of his faith­ful friend, Fritz von Tar­len­heim. Their reunions, marked by a poignant exchange of red ros­es, serve as a tes­ta­ment to endur­ing bonds and unspo­ken promis­es.

The chap­ter elo­quent­ly clos­es on a note of reflec­tive long­ing and noble res­ig­na­tion. Our nar­ra­tor dwells on the love he har­bors for Flavia, the Queen of Ruri­ta­nia— a love both grand and unat­tain­able, dig­ni­fied yet fraught with the anguish of their sep­a­ra­tion. With her, resides his heart, though he is left to won­der if their paths might ever cross again, in this life or beyond. Amid these mus­ings, there lingers the hint of des­tiny’s unseen hand—whether it will ush­er him back to the thrills and per­ils of Ruri­ta­nia or keep him ensconced in his soli­tary rever­ie remains a mys­tery, teas­ing the read­er with the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what might yet come.